Android Wear 2 Watches Will Play Nice with iPhones

The Apple Watch will see increased competition when the next round of Android Wear watches come out. That's because Android Wear 2.0 will have a lot more support for the iPhone at its launch, which is expected to be February 9.

The latest developer preview of Android Wear 2.0, released this week, reveals that iPhone owners will be able to install standalone apps, receive all notifications, and launch webpages on their phone from a watch app.

Other features that will be in Android Wear 2.0 include Google's Assistant, Android Pay, handwriting recognition, and customizable faces. Android Wear 2.0 will make its debut with two LG smartwatches, the LG Sport and LG Watch Style, which both will have circular OLED displays, a digital crown, and 4GB of storage.

it remains to be seen if these improvements to Android Wear, plus support for iPhones, will boost sales of these smartwatches, which were lackluster in 2016. Android Wear also faces competition from Samsung, which uses a competing Tizen-based operating system in its Gear 3; Garmin, which has been adding smartwatch-like features to its GPS devices; and Fitbit, whose acquisition of Pebble and some other companies indicate that it, too, could be developing its own smartwatch.